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Program promotes rural wind energy Wind turbine at UNL's Rogers Memorial Farm But despite Nebraska's potential as the sixth-largest wind producer in the country, wind energy development here has lagged. Hudgins hopes a new educational initiative for rural areas will motivate K-12 students to become future leaders in the wind energy movement. Hudgins, chair of UNL's Department of Electrical Engineering, received a $100,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Energy for UNL to direct the state's Wind for Schools program. The project engages rural communities in alternative energy research by installing small-scale wind turbines at rural schools. In Nebraska, the project is coordinated through the Nebraska Center for Energy Sciences Research. It's part of DOE's National Renewable Energy Laboratory's Wind for Schools project, which began in 2007 in Nebraska, Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Montana and South Dakota, with plans to expand. Elkhorn Valley High School at Tilden was the first Nebraska school to participate. Hayes Center High School, Cedar Rapids High School and Diller-Odell High School recently came on board, and Hudgins expects three to five more schools to join this year. It's a winning idea. Having a fully operational wind turbine in the schoolyard gives real-life meaning to the concept of wind energy. The program curriculum leads students to analyze the environmental and economic benefits of bringing wind energy into their communities and introduces basic science and engineering concepts. Hudgins said there is no better time to introduce these skills. Experts estimate that by 2030, wind could supply 20 percent of the nation's energy. That could be an economic boon to rural communities, he said, but the U.S. needs more energy scientists and engineers. "I think the general public is aware of the advantages of wind energy, but we need to start training the people who will make it happen," Hudgins said. The program requires financial backing from various partners: public universities, utility companies, industries and K-12 school administrators. Each turbine project costs about $10,000. Funding sources include donations from the local utility, grants, participating schools and subsidies utilities can receive for promoting renewable energy technologies. Private companies, including Nebraska-based Valmont Industries, have provided materials at cost. "The key is having strong support from the community and the school system," Hudgins said. Dan McGuire, director of the American Corn Growers Foundation's Wealth from Wind program, is responsible for recruiting schools and getting local power companies to buy into the concept. Once a school is on board, Hudgins and UNL graduate students handle the technical details, such as calculating the cost of installing the turbine, determining the best way to connect the school to the power grid and overseeing construction of the turbine. UNL researchers also assist with data analysis. Each 70-foot turbine annually generates about 6,000 kilowatt hours of electricity. At a cost of 5 cents per kWh, a school could cut utility costs about $300 annually. That's a relatively low amount, Hudgins admits. "The idea is to keep it small because it's cheaper, safer and doesn't cause any net metering issues with the utility companies," he said. Reduced energy costs are a side benefit to Hudgins' main goal: introducing K-12 students to science and engineering. The experience of meeting UNL researchers during the three-year project, coupled with the university's new energy sciences minor, could be a powerful recruiting tool, he said. "We expect some of these students to become wind energy professionals," he said. Hudgins' short-term goal is for participating schools to swap data and compare how much energy each site generates. He'd also like to give high school seniors the opportunity to take UNL's introductory courses in energy sciences via distance learning. Wind for Schools is an example of how applied research can spur later fundamental research, Hudgins said. Rural areas are the focus because electrical transmission lines and distribution networks are limited in sparsely populated regions. Throughout the project nationwide, researchers from UNL and five other public universities are studying whether small distributed generating systems, like the ones being built at participating schools, are feasible power sources for farms, ranches or communities. A grant from the Nebraska Center for Energy Sciences Research supports work by Hudgins and colleagues to examine the viability of small wind generation systems for Nebraska farms or communities. Their findings will be useful to entrepreneurs interested in small-scale wind operations, he said.    | |
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